30 June 2009

Project NATAL: An in-depth look

There's been a lot of fuss over in Microsoft's Seattle headquarters about a new pilot project set to take the world by storm. Project Natal (pronounced, apparently, as Nah-Tahl not Nay-Tahl)is described as a revolutionary gaming phenomena with "No strings (or controllers) attached". Though the logistics of the system have not been described in-depth (nor is it necessary, the complexity of it all would probably be beyond me), its safe to say that Natal is unlike anything we have seen and is straight out of the imagination of todays gamers when they were, say, 12.

Here's the official release video promoting the product, acting more as a commercial than anything else:
Admittedly, I thought this was a joke after the first scene. It seemed absolutely impossible. It begins with amazing human-AI interaction, none we've ever seen before (come on, the badass on TV can recognize teenage jargon!). Then the fight scene kicks in and makes every Tekken fans dreams come true, as the character on screen demonstrates completely fluid movement and body reception to the gamer. I'm sure hardcore Sony fans will remain stringent that they would rather sit on their couch and game rather than work up a sweat. Now I'm definitely not much of a supporter of Microsoft, but I would much rather get up and kick, say, Darth Vader's ass rather than do it using a controller.

To emphasize the human-to-AI interactions, this video is worthwhile to check out:
Once more, Natal manages to get my hairs on edge. Not only are the graphics and movement of Milo breathtaking, his interaction is second to none. No matter how much you may want to barbecue Microsoft on a pitchfork, you have to admire the effort it must have taken to create such an expansive database of interactions it matches the human brain. He can understand emotion as well as pick up facial recognition, and project that of his own. Phenomenal, don't you think?

This final video will definitely be the nail in the coffin to your sanity:

Notice the insane motion detection of this system. There is an impossibly small lag, with a degree of accuracy so surreal and profane its straight out of a science fiction movie.

21 June 2009

NVIDA Finally Launches 40nm Notebook Graphics Card

NVIDIA today has announced 5 new mobile GPU’s built on the 40nm fabrication process. NVIDIA’s arch rival, AMD/ATi had launched the HD4860 and HD4830 way back in march which were the first 40nm Mobile GPU on the market. ATi was also the first Graphics Card manufacturer to launch a 40nm GPU – HD4770 which has seen tremendous success after its launch.

NVIDIA is finally catching up with Ati and today they announced 5 new Mobile GPU’s namely – the GTS 260M, GTS 250M, GT 240M, GT 230M and G210M. All these Mobile GPU’s have been made using 40nm fabrication process which translates into lower power consumption and better performance. These new GPU’s are based on the GTS200 architecture and supports Dx10.1 and Shader Model 4.1. These GPU also come equipped with GDDR5 Memory which offer higher memory clock speed and bandwith while comsuming less power. All the 5 GPU’s come in MXM3 interface which means that notebooks which will come with these GPU’s can be removed to upgrade the GPU’s, but this solely depends on the choice of the OEM whether he wants to use the MXM3 interface or not. The GTS 260M which is the top end card out of the 5 has a max TDP of 38W while the G210M which is the entry level card here has a max TDP of 14W. Except for the G210, all the other cards are equipped with 1GB GDDR5 RAM

20 June 2009

How To Create a Blog for Free in 4 Easy Steps


Step 1

Choose a free blogging software such as blogger,wordpress etc.

Step 2

Register for an account and create your blog.Its free so you can definitely try..

Step 3

Select Your Domain, Theme and Other Options.
During the registration process for your new blog account, you'll need to choose a domain name and blog theme. You also might want to take a few minutes before you actually start blogging to customize some of the other preferences for your blog that your blogging software allows you to modify such as the author name, comment moderation process, and so on. However, you're not required to do any customization before you start publishing blog posts.

Step 4

Start blogging.
Once you've completed steps 1-3, you're ready to join the blogosphere and start publishing content on your blog. There are many more ways you can customize your blog with plug-ins, feeds, blogrolls, and more, but these four easy steps are all you need to follow in order to start a simple blog.

19 June 2009

Microsoft Vista Speech Recognition Tested

This is really cool..check this out.

Akismet


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Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft has confirmed it will start rolling-out its free software security product for Windows users from next week.
Read more...

Microsoft Vs McAfee And Symantec

The military calls it ’search and destroy’ amd it appears that is exactly what Microsoft is doing. They have declared war on McAfee and Symantec. Their new Microsoft Security Essentials, aka Morro, will have a HUGE advantage over anything that McAfee and Symantec will be able to offer. It will be 100% free for the asking, will work with XP, Vista and Windows 7 and oh yeah, did I mention it will be free?

Now before you start throwing rocks at me for being a Microsoft shill, let me defend myself and my beliefs that free security software is the only way to go. About six years ago I dumped Symantec aka Norton anti-virus for AVG and haven’t looked back. I’ve been using the free version of AVG without a problem. No bugs, no viruses, no malware, no nothing.

Many of you have had similar results using the free version of Avast. Which makes one beg to ask? Why buy ANY security programs when there is free stuff available. The next question, or maybe it is more of an observation is this. It is the user who gets themselves infected and not the OS. People are just flat out ignorant, stupid, lazy, careless [pick anyone you like]. No matter how many times people are warned about the dangers of the Internet, there are those who choose to ignore the advice. There are those who do not keep their protections updated and those who don’t even have any protections in place.

By Microsoft offering free security protections they are saying to McAfee and Symantec, you are no longer needed. People do not have to pay blood money to protect Windows. We [Microsoft] can do a better job.

What do you think?

Comments welcome.
 

©2009 Edifying Minds | by TNB